Glad I'm not alone in feeling this way. I stopped connecting with the story when the miracle breakthroughs went into overdrive.

I wouldn't mind so much if there was some unprecedented world-changing event as an explanation for all the brand new science. Some reason that the impossible became so easy in this era. Not just the same group of prodigious youths bulldozing through scientific barriers whenever something inconveniences them because they are so smart.

I mean honestly, the contrived story has the same root cause as the repetitive gameplay formula problems -- it's the Yoshida style. He told the writers to not feel restricted by Oda's pre-existing lore, just make up some convenient excuse on the spot to smash through it.

The history of the realm has much better writing than the present-era player's journey. We're just gonna keep on liberating cities, planets, dimensions, whatever we focus our gaze on because it's so easy. The main scenario is about as serious as Hildibrand at this point.

Yoshida isn't alone in hurting the series reputation for good story content, it's all the directors and writers in the S-E age. XIII was some incomprehensible Fal'Cie god nonsense, XV was half-finished with some major story locations and events cut for time, XVI didn't finish as good as it started but I guess it could be called progress, it's better than the worst game.